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Actually yeah, it is quite wrong unless you asked for their permission and give them credit for that. It's like stealing. However sadly people usually do not realize this and often use fan art a lot on this forum, as far as I have seen in here. Of course they must have their reasons, it is not that you could track the artist of a drawing you randomly found on the net to ask them for permission, it is not that easy. But the easiest thing to do I think is to avoid using fan art. Draw your own, it will be better that way.

Why don't you commission or request an artist you kmow ? It ks not hard to find an artist who draw pokemon for free or for reasonable price on this forum or deviantart. If not, just drop the bloody thing, it won't do any harm if you don't make those. Stealing someone else's artwork doesn't worth it.

Think of it like this. You want to eat apple but too lazy to plant an apple tree from scratch or buy one, so you stole an apple tree someone already planted and plant it at your home. Does it make you deserved the apple ?

Your metaphor is sort of off topic, I'm not being self entitled about it. Also, since the only reason I made it was for fun/practice, I'm not standing to gain any sort of non-intellectual profit, I don't see a reason in feeling bad about it for the same reason I don't feel bad about using official artwork.

If I do use other art that other people have draw in a sig banner I usually in the corner put "Art by: enter username here at deviantart.com" or something like that. I can understand though that people don't really want their art to be edited. Myself. I don't really mind if people use my art so long as they provide proper credit. I give them that same respect I expect to get that respect back sort of thing. I myself would actually be honored if someone used my crappy art in a sig if they gave me credit XD.

If I didn't draw it and I found it on like Genbooru or Zerochan then i'll usually put art not drawn by me or something, just so people know that i'm not claiming the art. I'll also usually leave a link in my sig to the exact place I found it so that if the artist does come forward to you and doesn't want their art out like that then you can show them where you got it and still show them that your decent enough not to claim art that's not yours. Just say "I didn't know the artist name, I obtained the image from "blah blah" site here's the link. Now that I have found you would you like me to remove the sig or can it edit it with your proper name now that I know who you are."

The internet is an odd and sometimes shady place. Then comes in my personal ideal of if you put it up on the internet your basically asking for people to take it. The internet has kinda turned into a place of free reign. Just look at gelbooru, zerochan, 4chan, tumblr, all image hosting sites. There's nothing you can do to stop things being stolen, not even record companies or producers can stop that. We can sure as hell try but its just come to that point. If you want some form of credit then make a watermark. As much as you want you'll never be able to get people to stop using your art.

And its not all your fault either. If they didn't properly watermark their stuff then its somewhat their fault to. I know that's really rude of me to say but were in a day and age now where people will steal anything. As an artist you have to be smart enough to put on a watermark. DA has a watermarking feature. And its not that hard to write your name in big letters and turn down the opacity like I did in one of my pictures. It may look tacky but its smarter than not doing anything at all and makes people have to go through great lengths just to edit it. If someone wants to edit out my watermark and takes the time to do it, hell you can keep it if your that determined. If you don't mark your stuff your kinda asking for it. Plus its a sig banner. Your not making profit off someone elses work and if anything it gives the artist publicity.

Its a tough situation. I see it from both angles, both as an artist thats had some of my work used, and as a person who has made things before with other art giving the right credit.

Now when its an original character that you created then its a whole different ballgame. I'm talking general art like, Pokemon or Sonic or stiff like that. Art you don't own the licensing of as the artist.

Now when its an original character that you created then its a whole different ballgame. I'm talking general art like, Pokemon or Sonic or stiff like that. Art you don't own the licensing of as the artist.

Yeah, fan art you mean.

As far as "credit" goes, I could care less what people decide to do with my art. If someone wants to use one of my banners and tell all of their friends that they made it, may they enjoy all of the complements (or critiques, I'm not trying to say that my art is gold or anything) that they get from it. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. I make my stuff purely for joy of making it, not for the hopes that someone will tell me that it looks cool, I make it all for me. Even in the past when I've had request shops I was doing them for the practice, and the clever ideas other people had to offer. So I guess what I'm saying is I'm more than delighted if someone pretends that something I do is theirs if it makes them feel good since I don't feel possessive over it.

I am a firm believe in what you said that basically once something is on the internet, it belongs to anyone who has the courage to say it's theirs, and it's never off, so it's your own responsibility if you want to keep it to yourself by not uploading it. (Even watermarks can be removed if you know how to do it.)

"I am a firm believe in what you said that basically once something is on the internet, it belongs to anyone who has the courage to say it's theirs, and it's never off, so it's your own responsibility if you want to keep it to yourself by not uploading it."

It's great that you like doing art for fun and release your work for free use, but the act of stealing somebody else's hard work and claiming it as your own is 100% NOT okay. Most artists upload their stuff to get noticed, gain fans, obtain valuable critiques and feedback, and (in some cases) profit from selling prints etc. It is not usually intended, but some artists also get major job opportunities this way when talent scouts happen upon their work online. Of course, this cannot happen when others steal or reupload somewhere like Tumblr without sourcing. I've even seen people that Photoshop out watermarks, links and signatures and it absolutely infuriates me. People have no idea how much this hurts the original artists. As for not crediting/sourcing, it takes literally 5 seconds to do a Google image search. Yes, all you have to do is link the image URL and Google will try to find the original source. Somewhere out there, an artist put time and effort into creating something that you enjoy... hours or even days worth. The LEAST you could do is put a minute or two in to try and find the original artist and support them with a link so that other people can enjoy their work too. :\

It's easy to say that you don't care what other people do with your art when you don't depend on it to pay the bills and keep you alive.

As for the original question of this post, yes. Making fan art of existing fan art (or any art really) is okay. A lot of people do this when they're starting out to try and emulate their favorite artists. If you intend to upload however, it is best to give credit where it's due. Obviously a simple signature banner isn't going to do anybody any harm at all, but it would be mighty kind to credit whoever came up with the original idea.